Comments on: Should hospitalized patients be routinely screened for MRSA?

By: Jauman

Jauman — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:50:00 +0000

One area often overlooked in the battle against the transfer of dangerous infectious diseases in medical environments are the ubiquitous keyboards and mice. Standard keyboards and mice can not be disinfected because germs collect around and in seams and under keys. Recently Man & Machine, Inc. released a White Paper titled, “Minimizing Transmission of Infectious Disease in Heath Care Environments by Use of Disinfectable PC Keyboards and Mice.” It can be viewed at: http://www.man-machine.com/whitepaper.htm

By: Cascadia - Consultant

Cascadia - Consultant — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:30:00 +0000

More people are now dying each year from MRSA then from AIDS. http://tinyurl.com/22uo5c

In New Jersey two Insurance companies are linking it to P4P for Hospitals. (detection not reduction). http://tinyurl.com/6ecvyb They were surprised to discover that once implemented 8.4% of all patients were carriers and 1.4% acquired it in the hospital.

Business Case: There is no evidence that it will ballon health care costs and in fact the programs pay for themselves by preventing even one case which costs up to $20,000 to treat. Already covered by the IHI campaign this might become a “never event” soon.

Sherry Reynolds – Alliance4Health

By: David Harlow

David Harlow — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:05:00 +0000

There are some clear steps that every hospital should take, both for the sake of its patients and for the sake of its bottom line, since it will be penalized financially for hospital-acquired infections.
Check out a recent GAO report on what some hospitals and states are doing on this front. http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20081002084135.pdf